Renewed Efforts to Stone Jesus
31
Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone Him.
32
Jesus replied,
“I have shown you many good works from the Father. Which of these works are you stoning Me for? ”
33
“We aren't stoning You for a good work,” the Jews answered, “but for blasphemy, because You — being a man — make Yourself God.”
34
Jesus answered them,
“Isn't it written in your scripture,
I said, you are gods
?
35
If He called those whom the word of God came to ‘gods' — and the Scripture cannot be broken —
36
do you say, ‘You are blaspheming' to the One the Father set apart and sent into the world, because I said: I am the Son of God?
37
If I am not doing My Father's works, don't believe Me.
38
But if I am doing them and you don't believe Me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand
that the Father is in Me and I in the Father.”
39
Then they were trying again to seize Him, yet He eluded their grasp.
Many beyond the Jordan Believe in Jesus
40
So He departed again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and He remained there.
41
Many came to Him and said, “John never did a sign, but everything John said about this man was true.”
42
And many believed in Him there.
John
Lazarus Dies at Bethany
11
Now a man was sick, Lazarus, from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2
Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.
3
So the sisters sent a message to Him: “Lord, the one You love is sick.”
4
When Jesus heard it, He said,
“This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
5
Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.
6
So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.
7
Then after that, He said to the disciples,
“Let's go to Judea again.”
8
“
•Rabbi
,” the disciples told Him, “just now the
•Jews
tried to stone You, and You're going there again? ”
9
“Aren't there 12 hours in a day? ”
Jesus answered.
“If anyone walks during the day, he doesn't stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
10
If anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.”
11
He said this, and then He told them,
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen
•asleep
, but I'm on My way to wake him up.”
12
Then the disciples said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”
13
Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought He was speaking about natural sleep.
14
So Jesus then told them plainly,
“Lazarus has died.
15
I'm glad for you that I wasn't there so that you may believe. But let's go to him.”
16
Then Thomas (called “Twin”) said to his fellow disciples, “Let's go so that we may die with Him.”
The Resurrection and the Life
17
When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
18
Bethany was near Jerusalem (about two miles away).
19
Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
20
As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him. But Mary remained seated in the house.
21
Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
22
Yet even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.”
23
“Your brother will rise again,”
Jesus told her.
24
Martha said, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25
Jesus said to her,
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.
26
Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die — ever. Do you believe this? ”
27
“Yes, Lord,” she told Him, “I believe You are the
•Messiah
, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
Jesus Shares the Sorrow of Death
28
Having said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
29
As soon as she heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him.
30
Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met Him.
31
The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out. So they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.
32
When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet and told Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died! ”
33
When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, He was angry in His spirit and deeply moved.
34
“Where have you put him? ”
He asked.
“Lord,” they told Him, “come and see.”
35
Jesus wept.
36
So the Jews said, “See how He loved him! ”
37
But some of them said, “Couldn't He who opened the blind man's eyes also have kept this man from dying? ”
The Seventh Sign: Raising Lazarus from the Dead
38
Then Jesus, angry in Himself again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
39
“Remove the stone,”
Jesus said.
Martha, the dead man's sister, told Him, “Lord, he's already decaying. It's been four days.”
40
Jesus said to her,
“Didn't I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? ”
41
So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes and said,
“Father, I thank You that You heard Me.
42
I know that You always hear Me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so they may believe You sent Me.”
43
After He said this, He shouted with a loud voice,
“Lazarus, come out! ”
44
The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them,
“Loose him and let him go.”
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45
Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what He did believed in Him.
46
But some of them went to the
•Pharisees
and told them what Jesus had done.
47
So the
•chief
priests and the Pharisees convened the
•Sanhedrin
and said, “What are we going to do since this man does many signs?
48
If we let Him continue in this way, everyone will believe in Him! Then the Romans will come and remove both our place and our nation.”
49
One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!
50
You're not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.”
51
He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation,
52
and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God.
53
So from that day on they plotted to kill Him.
54
Therefore Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. And He stayed there with the disciples.
55
The Jewish
•Passover
was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover.
56
They were looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the
•temple
complex: “What do you think? He won't come to the festival, will He? ”
57
The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where He was, he should report it so they could arrest Him.
John
The Anointing at Bethany
12
Six days before the
•Passover
, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, the one Jesus had raised from the dead.
2
So they gave a dinner for Him there; Martha was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Him.
3
Then Mary took a pound of fragrant oil — pure and expensive nard — anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped His feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
4
Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray Him), said,
5
“Why wasn't this fragrant oil sold for 300
•denarii
and given to the poor? ”
6
He didn't say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.
7
Jesus answered,
“Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of My burial.
8
For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.”
The Decision to Kill Lazarus
9
Then a large crowd of the Jews learned He was there. They came not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus the one He had raised from the dead.
10
Therefore the
•chief
priests decided to kill Lazarus also
11
because he was the reason many of the Jews were deserting them and believing in Jesus.
The Triumphal Entry
12
The next day, when the large crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
13
they took palm branches and went out to meet Him. They kept shouting: “
•
Hosanna!
He who comes in the name of the Lord is the blessed One
— the King of Israel! ”
14
Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written:
15
Fear no more,
Daughter
•Zion
. Look, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.
16
His disciples did not understand these things at first. However, when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and that they had done these things to Him.
17
Meanwhile, the crowd, which had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify.
18
This is also why the crowd met Him, because they heard He had done this sign.
19
Then the
•Pharisees
said to one another, “You see? You've accomplished nothing. Look — the world has gone after Him! ”
Jesus Predicts His Crucifixion
20
Now some Greeks were among those who went up to worship at the festival.
21
So they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested of him, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”
22
Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
23
Jesus replied to them,
“The hour has come for the
•Son
of Man to be glorified.
24
“
•I assure you
: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.
25
The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
26
If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me. Where I am, there My servant also will be. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.
27
“Now My soul is troubled. What should I say — Father, save Me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour.
28
Father, glorify Your name! ”
Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again! ”
29
The crowd standing there heard it and said it was thunder. Others said that an angel had spoken to Him.
30
Jesus responded,
“This voice came, not for Me, but for you.
31
Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this
•world
will be cast out.
32
As for Me, if I am lifted up
from the earth I will draw all people to Myself.”
33
He said this to signify what kind of death He was about to die.
34
Then the crowd replied to Him, “We have heard from the scripture that the
•Messiah
will remain forever. So how can You say,
‘The Son of Man must be lifted up'
? Who is this Son of Man? ”
35
Jesus answered,
“The light will be with you only a little longer. Walk while you have the light so that darkness doesn't overtake you. The one who walks in darkness doesn't know where he's going.
36
While you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become sons of light.”
Jesus said this, then went away and hid from them.